Microsoft buys out Sun, gets rid of the hardware, strips the company down to the basics, but keeps all the IPO. Puts an end to various Sun projects like Solaris, OpenOffice.Org, StarOffice, etc. Dominates Java and then announces that only Windows/Longhorn will be supported by Java and nothing else.
No I live in St. Losers, Misery, aka District 268.;)
So you have the little black books? FarFuture reprinted them, Marc Miller is still "The Man". The have all the corrections in them now and bundle the books in a bigger format now. You can buy the reprints at the FarFuture web site. Traveller is copyright and trademark FarFuture Enterprises.
My Group still plays or gets online to discuss things.
there are still people I know using the older versions of Wordperfect.
Some people with DOS/Windows 3.X and use WP 3.0 to 5.X for DOS. I know a few lawyers who still use WP 5.0 to 6.0 for Windows on versions of Windows as new as Windows XP. They got documents written using WP macros that do not convert well into modern technologies. There are still bugs with it, like when I created an invoice using WP 6.0 for Windows using the built in template and tried to print it out over a Novel network printer, it made most of the document blank.
I checked the Wordperfect FAQ and site, there is no mention of Wordperfect Office for anything other than Windows. I remember back in the day when Wordperfect was converted for almost every platform that existed. Whatever happened to that Wordperfect? OO.Org seems to have taken the place of that Wordperfect.
US Video Game companies trying to sell games in Japan based on Western Culture concepts and then wondering why they aren't selling?
I read that article and one thing kept popping out and was obvious to me, "Violent games do not sell well in Japan". Then I recalled some successful games not developed in the US like Pacman, Tetris, etc. Ok, what if instead of violent video games, we tried to sell maze and puzzle games to Japan?
Sure US Citizens want to be the big guy with the guns and muscles that uses violence to solve problems, but apparently the Japanese Citizens want to use creativity and thinking to solve problems.
Start thinking using Eastern Culture, if you want to sell games in Japan. They are not all like us over there. We are like Cowboys to them, John Wayne, and all that.
if you block their pop-up ads, their spyware/adware will surely get you later. No need to install their malware, it gets installed automatically.
JS IRNOR.M anyone? Really nasty malware I found on my system that NAV and others could not detect. It uses HTML and Javascript to install itself from a web page. Lookt2me was another one, the latest version could not be removed, it did pop-ups and destroyed my TCP/IP stack after I removed it. Forcing a reinstall of the OS.
You really want to get rid of pop-ups forever? Reformat the hard drive, install Linux and Mozilla/Firefox and avoid sites that require IE or Windows in order to work.
last I remember Darvos added a hover device to the Daleks so they could hover up the stairs and prove Doctor Who to be wrong. Next improvement may make them looking more like Terminators? Who knows?
Doctor Who has some lives left, just regerate to a better actor and get better script writers and better special effects and let Lucas or Speilberg do it and then you have a hit.:) My picks are Bruce Willis, Pierce Brosnan, John Travolta, or The Rock. Just because they introduce a different style to the character.
Bring back The Master, have him steal the body of Danny Devito, Gary Oldman, or Tommy Lee Jones, we might get some better acting then.:) For better effects have him steal the body of Gary Coleman or Mr. T. Hee hee! Or better yet, get Arnold to take a break as Gov of Californa to play The Master.;)
Get a better companion than some woman/girl who screams her head off when she sees a monster, or a better man/boy than one who can use math really good or is so stupid he tried to remove a bomb that was rigged to explode if tampered with off of The Doctor's back.:) Best companions to bring back:
Ramona Leela Jamie K-9 (Just build a new one already!)
I think we just uncovered a whole cache of made for TV bombs! Almost every one of those shows I saw where awful! Someone call Homeland Security, we just uncovered major bomb makers! Careful, they may go off if you watch them. Just turn the channel, slowly, slowly, no too fast you just set one off!:)
I thought they were good shows. Yet I couldn't help noticing that they stole from other shows as well.
There were times when I felt like watching "Andromeda" like I was watching a bad "Star Trek" episode. I liked the show when it started, but after a while I could no longer watch it. I heard a rumor that Gene tried to get networks to air it in the 1970's after "Star Trek" went off the air. Now I see why the networks did not want to air it. Don't get me wrong, it is a good idea, just that the stories needed better work, good acting too, just weak plots and plots that seem to have been stolen from "Star Trek" leaving me with a Deja Vu.
"Mutant X", like a bad spin-off of the X-Men movie. "Mutant X" is to X-Men, like "Andromeda" is to "Star Trek". Also "Mutant X" seemed to get worse over the time it aired.
Save a really good show, get "FarScape", "Battlestar Galactica" (Original series before Galactica 80, not the Sci Fi Channel remake), or "Lexx" back on the air instead of "Andromeda". Get "The Invisible Man", "Good Vs. Evil", or "The Misfits Of Science" back on the air instead of "Mutant X".
BTW whatever happened to:
"The Six Million Dollar Man" "Wonder Woman" "Buck Rogers" "The Greatest American Hero" "Quark"
Now there were good shows, bring them back with an all new cast. See what happens.
Recreate the BBC shows too: "Blake's Seven" "Red Dwarf" "Doctor Who" "The Prisoner" "Dark Shadows"
If done right, they may be more entertaining than "Andromeda" or "Mutant X" ever where. Even Professional Wrestling has better script writters than these two shows had. Seesh!;)
third to last job I had, I was told that "Programmers are a dime a dozen" because so many were out of work and willing to work for at less than half of the cost they were paying me. Someone earning $13/hr was able to replace me at $25/hr. I had been there for almost five years and was ready to draw a pension, earn another vacation week, earn more profit sharing, etc.
I was not promoted beyond my position because I only had an Associate's. I am now working on a four year degree, but in Business Management, because IT is dying out in the USA anyway. All the good jobs are going overseas or being paid a laughningly low pay scale. Imagine a Senior Programmer/Analyst or System Administrator being paid $25K to $27K USD a year? Way below the salary survey done a few years ago. So either work cheap, don't work at all, or find another line of work like I am doing. If you want to get paid more than that, you may very well be dreaming. Play the Lottery, you might just have a better chance. Management does not care, never did, and they just started to pay less because of the economy and conditions in the IT market.
It is the Omniverse version
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Has a bit of everything in it, elements from different RPG games. Vampire: The Masqerade, for one of them.;) Vampires in the Traveller universe.
We also fought Cylons, Terminators, Warewolves, Mechs, and many many more from other games, stories, etc.
Our referee invents this stuff up as we go along. It may be more like GURPS than Traveller.;)
on if they include the stolen code in their work or not. If they only saw the NT 4.0 and W2K source code to find the undocumented and hidden APIs to emulate/convert to on Linux, and then did not use the source code, then it may not be so illegal. It would be hard to prove that they used stolen code, except for the fact that they are using undocumented and hidden API calls that nobody but Microsoft or anyone else who saw Windows source code should know about.
Phoenix and Award did this to clone IBM's BIOS, they unassembled IBM's ROM BIOS for the IBM PC and then found all the calls it made. Then that team was dirty, so they could not be used for building the Clone BIOS. A second clean team looked at BIOS calls gathered by the first team, and then designed a Clone BIOS to use them. No IBM code was used, but the Clone BIOS functioned just like IBM's BIOS did.
Besides part of the Project David website talked about PC Emulation, so I suspect they are going to provide a PC Emulator to run Windows under. Something like Virtual PC, VMWARE, Bochs, etc.
D&D newbies still make the same mistakes
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as they did 30 years ago.
"I'll just shoot this magic missle down that hallway..."
"I'll ransack the Wizard's castle. He is just an old man, what can he do to me?"
"I see a glowing sword? Must be magic. No need to cast an identify spell, I'll just pick it up."
"It is just Dwarven Meade, I'll drink the whole bottle! What harm can it possible do?"
"I'm not scared of that monster, I got a magic sword +1. Why is everyone else running away?"
Very interesting
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no mention of the "Chainmail" game that existed before D&D was written though.:) I think D&D was loosely based on the Chainmail rules.
My favorite character was the Cleric, I'd usually be the guy turning the undead and healing everyone before they died. If I got powerful enough I could reserect the dead characters. I also liked the Anti-Healing spells like Cause Serious Wounds and Finger of Death. Never make fun of a Cleric because they are limited to blunt weapons.:) They might just save your rear when the time comes.
Ah well, I liked making it to level 36 and then taking the next portal into the underworld and seeing if I could take on the Devil and his minions. Even The Devil fears my characters, and has a good reason to!
Favorite items to mix up chaos in the game: Eye and Arm of Vecna. Deck of many things. Sword of Kaz.
Those four are just way over the top. We had a DM that used them all in one game!
We mostly play Traveller now, a Science Fiction game in the far future. But our GM/DM had us travel into the underworld and changed all of our high tech stuff into midle ages stuff, so it is D&D all over again.:)
stop working for PHBs and Classical Managers who do not care about your own well being and stress levels.
You job will soon be outsourced anyway. Some day in the near future even burger flipping jobs will be L1 or H1B Visa workers instead of US Citizens.
Do what I did, join the Dark Side, I am taking business management in college. I will either work as a manager or start up my own business. Either way I should be able to earn more money and have less stress than when I was a lowley, overstressed, and abused IT worker.
At the end of the EULA is a random 8 digit number. You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read it in the EULA. In order to accept the EULA you have to enter this number, or else the install fails. That will stop people from hitting "Yes" or "Ok" without at least reading enough to see the number they need to continue.
Also what about EULA on preinstalled software? Nobody clicked through the agreement, so how is it enforcable? Windows, MSWorks, MSOffice, MSMoney, MSScreenOtters, whatever was installed on the PC by the OEM. If it has Spyware, like Media Player, it is already there and no EULA clickthrough was done. What about those issues?
Spyware is malware, pure and simple, it is unethical and now it may become illegal.
I want to control what enters and leaves my computer, I do not want web sites installing software without my ok or knowledge. When I click "No" on something I expect it not to install.
There are so many HTML/Javascript based Spyware programs out there it is not funny. I just ran into a JS_INOR.M Spyware/Trojan that Norton AntiVirus 2004 did not even know about nor could it remove it. Trend Micro's Housecall found it and I was able to remove it. It was in my temporary Internet files, so it was on a web page I viewed that installed itself. I was doing research for a college class of mine and the online library only works in IE, not Mozilla or Netscape, some site it linked to for an article I wanted to get installed this malware on my system.
BTW even Spybot could not detect the JS_INOR.M bug. So I propose that the Federal Government form some sort of Anti-Malware organization to share removal information about malware with other companies to make better removal tools. This is a serious threat and a good bulk of this malware originates from other countries that do not have virus, trojan, spyware, adware laws.
If the Spyware and Adware software makers told the users what the software will be doing on their machine, the users most likely would not install it.
I recall there was a plug-in for Kazaa that removed the Spyware/Adware and kept Kazaa working. Diet-K was the name I think.
By my definitions, Spyware and Adware are malware and unethical to force the users to install with the free or shareware software.
Many PHBs confuse free or shareware with open source software and claim that open source software contains spyware/adware. I've ran into that before, they need a clue-by-four upside their head to convince them otherwise.
We had an office prankster at one of my former workplaces. He would always lower my chair before I went into work. He would mess up my desk so managers would think I was sloppy. He would take employee photos and Photoshop them and print them out. Every day we got joke messages from various Yahoo accounts. I confronted him in email about it, as I was getting sick of the jokes. He finally admitted to it, but kept on joking around and didn't do much work.
Eventually they let me go but kept him, he was the boss' favorite friend. Favoritism, you got to love it!:(
Now I just need that PPC card, IDE hard drive interface, Ethernet adapter, etc for my Amiga 500 to finally run it.;)
I cannot wait until the Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, GNUCash, Evolution, Apache, and other open source projects are converted to run on AmigaOS 4.0, yeah!:D
Finally, maybe now us Amiga users can start to get more respect than the OS/2, Plan9, DR-DOS, CP/M, A/UX, Desqview, Xenix, OS9 (Not MacOS 9, that 6809 based OS that the Radio Shack Coco series ran), and GEM users have gotten. >:)
Of course you know that AmigaOne users will use Yellow Dog Linux with that Mac on Linux program to run Macintosh apps. Hee hee!:) Unless someone wants to port that to AmigaOS 4.0?
Hmmm, I wonder what the security of AmigaOS 4.0 is like? I want to have an AmigaOS 4.0 based web server and see if the Script-Kiddies can break into it?
Really if Amiga was serious about gaining marketshare and making money, they would have AmigaOS 4.0 supporting WINTEL hardware and sell it at Wal-Mart next to Lindows and Sun JavaOS workstations.:) Those Eyetech machines are way too costly. It may work for Apple to sell high priced machines, but not Amiga/Eyetech. Not unless they have or get the application base that MacOS OSX has.
Microsoft can be taken out, but some factors need to happen first:
#1 Linux and open source software needs to get certified by official certification standards comitties. As of yet they do not certifiy anything but Microsoft software. Some companies that depend on the certification for their business or line or work only by certified software.
#2 More business software that is easy to use and install and configure needs to be made for Linux and other alternative platforms. It also needs to be affordable (priced under Microsoft's prices) and offer a good tech support plan.
#3 Lindows is a good start to get the consumer market to buy something that is not Microsoft but can use the same file formats that Microsoft software can. Lindows is also easy to use, install, and configure but due to using Non-GPL code to do all of that, Lindows is commercial for $50USD to $60USD for the basic Lindows OS. Wal-Mart sells PCs that use it for $400USD to $300USD each, 'nuff said. More companies need to follow Lindows' and Mac OSX's lead and make an easier to use, install, and configure OS.
#4 Non-MS software needs to be bundled with new hardware. So far I have only seen Lindows do this with PC hardware, very few cases of other operating systems being bundled.
#5 Companies like HP need to learn to support Linus all the way or no way at all. I bought a HP Laptop because I was told that HP supports Linux, and that buying a HP system and Linux from HP will protect me from SCO. The reality of it all I found out was pure 100% BS. After buying the laptop, HP told me there was no Linux drivers available for it, and no Linux support for it even if I buy Linux from them. I went to look for Linux drivers for my modem and wireless Ethernet devices and found that there are companies that offer them for $15USD and $35USD respectfully that are not the OEM, and that they are not guaranteed to work with all flavors of Linux. So HP gets two thumbs down from me for their p*ss poor Linux support. Other companies are not that much better. We need the big PC makers like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc to 100% support Linux, not just on selected machines and not just for certain hardware. This is the same BS that happened to OS/2, don't let Linux suffer the fate of OS/2.
#6 Get more organizations to consider alternatives to Microsoft products. Take the PHBs out and shoot them if needed to get a better choice of software to use.;) Do some real surveys and research on the TCO and ROI on Linux verses Windows, not the BS stuff that Microsoft did. For example a Mainframe costs more to own and operate than PC Server, but Microsoft has Linux on a mainframe verses Windows 2003 Server on a PC Server, so WTF is wrong with this picture? Run Linux on the same PC Server as Windows 2003 and get a better idea of a comparison.
No Linux Game Distro is needed when you have a Live Bootable CD like KNOPPIX or Lindows Live. Just bundle the game with the Live Linux CDR and have the user boot off of the CD-ROM/DVD drive.
If they have non-standard hardware, or can't figure out how to boot a CD, then s*cks to be them.:)
Ok I admit that a Linux Game Distro would be a good idea, but you have to support so many different hardware choices that it would be near impossible to do so. So how do you deal with a user who gets the Linux Game Distro and then has an unsupported WinMODEM or Wifi network adapter that no known Linux driver exists for? Network gaming is then not possible and they will get very upset and move back to Windows. So what are you going to tell them, to buy Linux friendly hardware net time?
Most MCSE's I know cheated on their tests by getting a copy of it off the Internet with all the answers on it before taking it. The rest I have no idea how they passed their MCSE because they apparently do not know anything important about Microsoft technologies. There are few MCSEs that I know of who are worth more than a protozoan's waste.;)
Disclaimer, I am not a MCSE, nor do I intend to be. In my humble opinion, it is a BS-Certification and while I could easily get one, I choose not to on the priciple of the thing.
I do not want to install their malware, nor should I think it should be legal to trick the user to install it either. If the users knew what kind of program it was, they would not install it. But it has to be hidden behind OS updates, Media Players, shareware, helper programs, toolbars, and other things.
Find another way to make money, I am not buying their defense of Spyware/Adware one bit.
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Microsoft buys out Sun, gets rid of the hardware, strips the company down to the basics, but keeps all the IPO. Puts an end to various Sun projects like Solaris, OpenOffice.Org, StarOffice, etc. Dominates Java and then announces that only Windows/Longhorn will be supported by Java and nothing else.
So you have the little black books? FarFuture reprinted them, Marc Miller is still "The Man". The have all the corrections in them now and bundle the books in a bigger format now. You can buy the reprints at the FarFuture web site. Traveller is copyright and trademark FarFuture Enterprises.
My Group still plays or gets online to discuss things.
XUL sounds a bit like the bad guy from "Ghostbusters".
:)
"There is no Dana, only XUL!"
Somebody please cross those beams and close off the portal!
there are still people I know using the older versions of Wordperfect.
Some people with DOS/Windows 3.X and use WP 3.0 to 5.X for DOS. I know a few lawyers who still use WP 5.0 to 6.0 for Windows on versions of Windows as new as Windows XP. They got documents written using WP macros that do not convert well into modern technologies. There are still bugs with it, like when I created an invoice using WP 6.0 for Windows using the built in template and tried to print it out over a Novel network printer, it made most of the document blank.
I checked the Wordperfect FAQ and site, there is no mention of Wordperfect Office for anything other than Windows. I remember back in the day when Wordperfect was converted for almost every platform that existed. Whatever happened to that Wordperfect? OO.Org seems to have taken the place of that Wordperfect.
Am I the only one who sees this problem?
US Video Game companies trying to sell games in Japan based on Western Culture concepts and then wondering why they aren't selling?
I read that article and one thing kept popping out and was obvious to me, "Violent games do not sell well in Japan". Then I recalled some successful games not developed in the US like Pacman, Tetris, etc. Ok, what if instead of violent video games, we tried to sell maze and puzzle games to Japan?
Sure US Citizens want to be the big guy with the guns and muscles that uses violence to solve problems, but apparently the Japanese Citizens want to use creativity and thinking to solve problems.
Start thinking using Eastern Culture, if you want to sell games in Japan. They are not all like us over there. We are like Cowboys to them, John Wayne, and all that.
if you block their pop-up ads, their spyware/adware will surely get you later. No need to install their malware, it gets installed automatically.
JS IRNOR.M anyone? Really nasty malware I found on my system that NAV and others could not detect. It uses HTML and Javascript to install itself from a web page. Lookt2me was another one, the latest version could not be removed, it did pop-ups and destroyed my TCP/IP stack after I removed it. Forcing a reinstall of the OS.
You really want to get rid of pop-ups forever? Reformat the hard drive, install Linux and Mozilla/Firefox and avoid sites that require IE or Windows in order to work.
last I remember Darvos added a hover device to the Daleks so they could hover up the stairs and prove Doctor Who to be wrong. Next improvement may make them looking more like Terminators? Who knows?
:) My picks are Bruce Willis, Pierce Brosnan, John Travolta, or The Rock. Just because they introduce a different style to the character.
:) For better effects have him steal the body of Gary Coleman or Mr. T. Hee hee! Or better yet, get Arnold to take a break as Gov of Californa to play The Master. ;)
:) Best companions to bring back:
Doctor Who has some lives left, just regerate to a better actor and get better script writers and better special effects and let Lucas or Speilberg do it and then you have a hit.
Bring back The Master, have him steal the body of Danny Devito, Gary Oldman, or Tommy Lee Jones, we might get some better acting then.
Get a better companion than some woman/girl who screams her head off when she sees a monster, or a better man/boy than one who can use math really good or is so stupid he tried to remove a bomb that was rigged to explode if tampered with off of The Doctor's back.
Ramona
Leela
Jamie
K-9 (Just build a new one already!)
I think we just uncovered a whole cache of made for TV bombs! Almost every one of those shows I saw where awful! Someone call Homeland Security, we just uncovered major bomb makers! Careful, they may go off if you watch them. Just turn the channel, slowly, slowly, no too fast you just set one off! :)
I thought they were good shows. Yet I couldn't help noticing that they stole from other shows as well.
;)
There were times when I felt like watching "Andromeda" like I was watching a bad "Star Trek" episode. I liked the show when it started, but after a while I could no longer watch it. I heard a rumor that Gene tried to get networks to air it in the 1970's after "Star Trek" went off the air. Now I see why the networks did not want to air it. Don't get me wrong, it is a good idea, just that the stories needed better work, good acting too, just weak plots and plots that seem to have been stolen from "Star Trek" leaving me with a Deja Vu.
"Mutant X", like a bad spin-off of the X-Men movie. "Mutant X" is to X-Men, like "Andromeda" is to "Star Trek". Also "Mutant X" seemed to get worse over the time it aired.
Save a really good show, get "FarScape", "Battlestar Galactica" (Original series before Galactica 80, not the Sci Fi Channel remake), or "Lexx" back on the air instead of "Andromeda". Get "The Invisible Man", "Good Vs. Evil", or "The Misfits Of Science" back on the air instead of "Mutant X".
BTW whatever happened to:
"The Six Million Dollar Man"
"Wonder Woman"
"Buck Rogers"
"The Greatest American Hero"
"Quark"
Now there were good shows, bring them back with an all new cast. See what happens.
Recreate the BBC shows too:
"Blake's Seven"
"Red Dwarf"
"Doctor Who"
"The Prisoner"
"Dark Shadows"
If done right, they may be more entertaining than "Andromeda" or "Mutant X" ever where. Even Professional Wrestling has better script writters than these two shows had. Seesh!
My top Windows programs I install after a reformat include:
Norton Antivirus
Spybot: Search and Destroy
The Cleaner
Spysweeper
Sygate Personal Firewall
Any other Malware remover I can find.
If you are using Windows, and have Internet access, get used to living with Malware because eventually it will find its way on your machine.
third to last job I had, I was told that "Programmers are a dime a dozen" because so many were out of work and willing to work for at less than half of the cost they were paying me. Someone earning $13/hr was able to replace me at $25/hr. I had been there for almost five years and was ready to draw a pension, earn another vacation week, earn more profit sharing, etc.
I was not promoted beyond my position because I only had an Associate's. I am now working on a four year degree, but in Business Management, because IT is dying out in the USA anyway. All the good jobs are going overseas or being paid a laughningly low pay scale. Imagine a Senior Programmer/Analyst or System Administrator being paid $25K to $27K USD a year? Way below the salary survey done a few years ago. So either work cheap, don't work at all, or find another line of work like I am doing. If you want to get paid more than that, you may very well be dreaming. Play the Lottery, you might just have a better chance. Management does not care, never did, and they just started to pay less because of the economy and conditions in the IT market.
Has a bit of everything in it, elements from different RPG games. Vampire: The Masqerade, for one of them. ;) Vampires in the Traveller universe.
;)
We also fought Cylons, Terminators, Warewolves, Mechs, and many many more from other games, stories, etc.
Our referee invents this stuff up as we go along. It may be more like GURPS than Traveller.
on if they include the stolen code in their work or not. If they only saw the NT 4.0 and W2K source code to find the undocumented and hidden APIs to emulate/convert to on Linux, and then did not use the source code, then it may not be so illegal. It would be hard to prove that they used stolen code, except for the fact that they are using undocumented and hidden API calls that nobody but Microsoft or anyone else who saw Windows source code should know about.
Phoenix and Award did this to clone IBM's BIOS, they unassembled IBM's ROM BIOS for the IBM PC and then found all the calls it made. Then that team was dirty, so they could not be used for building the Clone BIOS. A second clean team looked at BIOS calls gathered by the first team, and then designed a Clone BIOS to use them. No IBM code was used, but the Clone BIOS functioned just like IBM's BIOS did.
Besides part of the Project David website talked about PC Emulation, so I suspect they are going to provide a PC Emulator to run Windows under. Something like Virtual PC, VMWARE, Bochs, etc.
as they did 30 years ago.
"I'll just shoot this magic missle down that hallway..."
"I'll ransack the Wizard's castle. He is just an old man, what can he do to me?"
"I see a glowing sword? Must be magic. No need to cast an identify spell, I'll just pick it up."
"It is just Dwarven Meade, I'll drink the whole bottle! What harm can it possible do?"
"I'm not scared of that monster, I got a magic sword +1. Why is everyone else running away?"
no mention of the "Chainmail" game that existed before D&D was written though. :) I think D&D was loosely based on the Chainmail rules.
:) They might just save your rear when the time comes.
:)
My favorite character was the Cleric, I'd usually be the guy turning the undead and healing everyone before they died. If I got powerful enough I could reserect the dead characters. I also liked the Anti-Healing spells like Cause Serious Wounds and Finger of Death. Never make fun of a Cleric because they are limited to blunt weapons.
Ah well, I liked making it to level 36 and then taking the next portal into the underworld and seeing if I could take on the Devil and his minions. Even The Devil fears my characters, and has a good reason to!
Favorite items to mix up chaos in the game:
Eye and Arm of Vecna.
Deck of many things.
Sword of Kaz.
Those four are just way over the top. We had a DM that used them all in one game!
We mostly play Traveller now, a Science Fiction game in the far future. But our GM/DM had us travel into the underworld and changed all of our high tech stuff into midle ages stuff, so it is D&D all over again.
stop working for PHBs and Classical Managers who do not care about your own well being and stress levels.
You job will soon be outsourced anyway. Some day in the near future even burger flipping jobs will be L1 or H1B Visa workers instead of US Citizens.
Do what I did, join the Dark Side, I am taking business management in college. I will either work as a manager or start up my own business. Either way I should be able to earn more money and have less stress than when I was a lowley, overstressed, and abused IT worker.
At the end of the EULA is a random 8 digit number. You have to scroll all the way to the bottom to read it in the EULA. In order to accept the EULA you have to enter this number, or else the install fails. That will stop people from hitting "Yes" or "Ok" without at least reading enough to see the number they need to continue.
Also what about EULA on preinstalled software? Nobody clicked through the agreement, so how is it enforcable? Windows, MSWorks, MSOffice, MSMoney, MSScreenOtters, whatever was installed on the PC by the OEM. If it has Spyware, like Media Player, it is already there and no EULA clickthrough was done. What about those issues?
Spyware is malware, pure and simple, it is unethical and now it may become illegal.
I want to control what enters and leaves my computer, I do not want web sites installing software without my ok or knowledge. When I click "No" on something I expect it not to install.
There are so many HTML/Javascript based Spyware programs out there it is not funny. I just ran into a JS_INOR.M Spyware/Trojan that Norton AntiVirus 2004 did not even know about nor could it remove it. Trend Micro's Housecall found it and I was able to remove it. It was in my temporary Internet files, so it was on a web page I viewed that installed itself. I was doing research for a college class of mine and the online library only works in IE, not Mozilla or Netscape, some site it linked to for an article I wanted to get installed this malware on my system.
BTW even Spybot could not detect the JS_INOR.M bug. So I propose that the Federal Government form some sort of Anti-Malware organization to share removal information about malware with other companies to make better removal tools. This is a serious threat and a good bulk of this malware originates from other countries that do not have virus, trojan, spyware, adware laws.
If the Spyware and Adware software makers told the users what the software will be doing on their machine, the users most likely would not install it.
I recall there was a plug-in for Kazaa that removed the Spyware/Adware and kept Kazaa working. Diet-K was the name I think.
By my definitions, Spyware and Adware are malware and unethical to force the users to install with the free or shareware software.
Many PHBs confuse free or shareware with open source software and claim that open source software contains spyware/adware. I've ran into that before, they need a clue-by-four upside their head to convince them otherwise.
We had an office prankster at one of my former workplaces. He would always lower my chair before I went into work. He would mess up my desk so managers would think I was sloppy. He would take employee photos and Photoshop them and print them out. Every day we got joke messages from various Yahoo accounts. I confronted him in email about it, as I was getting sick of the jokes. He finally admitted to it, but kept on joking around and didn't do much work.
:(
Eventually they let me go but kept him, he was the boss' favorite friend. Favoritism, you got to love it!
Now I just need that PPC card, IDE hard drive interface, Ethernet adapter, etc for my Amiga 500 to finally run it. ;)
:D
:) Unless someone wants to port that to AmigaOS 4.0?
:) Those Eyetech machines are way too costly. It may work for Apple to sell high priced machines, but not Amiga/Eyetech. Not unless they have or get the application base that MacOS OSX has.
;)
I cannot wait until the Mozilla, OpenOffice.org, GNUCash, Evolution, Apache, and other open source projects are converted to run on AmigaOS 4.0, yeah!
Finally, maybe now us Amiga users can start to get more respect than the OS/2, Plan9, DR-DOS, CP/M, A/UX, Desqview, Xenix, OS9 (Not MacOS 9, that 6809 based OS that the Radio Shack Coco series ran), and GEM users have gotten. >:)
Of course you know that AmigaOne users will use Yellow Dog Linux with that Mac on Linux program to run Macintosh apps. Hee hee!
Hmmm, I wonder what the security of AmigaOS 4.0 is like? I want to have an AmigaOS 4.0 based web server and see if the Script-Kiddies can break into it?
Really if Amiga was serious about gaining marketshare and making money, they would have AmigaOS 4.0 supporting WINTEL hardware and sell it at Wal-Mart next to Lindows and Sun JavaOS workstations.
Want to know a secret? I see dead OSes!
Microsoft can be taken out, but some factors need to happen first:
;) Do some real surveys and research on the TCO and ROI on Linux verses Windows, not the BS stuff that Microsoft did. For example a Mainframe costs more to own and operate than PC Server, but Microsoft has Linux on a mainframe verses Windows 2003 Server on a PC Server, so WTF is wrong with this picture? Run Linux on the same PC Server as Windows 2003 and get a better idea of a comparison.
#1 Linux and open source software needs to get certified by official certification standards comitties. As of yet they do not certifiy anything but Microsoft software. Some companies that depend on the certification for their business or line or work only by certified software.
#2 More business software that is easy to use and install and configure needs to be made for Linux and other alternative platforms. It also needs to be affordable (priced under Microsoft's prices) and offer a good tech support plan.
#3 Lindows is a good start to get the consumer market to buy something that is not Microsoft but can use the same file formats that Microsoft software can. Lindows is also easy to use, install, and configure but due to using Non-GPL code to do all of that, Lindows is commercial for $50USD to $60USD for the basic Lindows OS. Wal-Mart sells PCs that use it for $400USD to $300USD each, 'nuff said. More companies need to follow Lindows' and Mac OSX's lead and make an easier to use, install, and configure OS.
#4 Non-MS software needs to be bundled with new hardware. So far I have only seen Lindows do this with PC hardware, very few cases of other operating systems being bundled.
#5 Companies like HP need to learn to support Linus all the way or no way at all. I bought a HP Laptop because I was told that HP supports Linux, and that buying a HP system and Linux from HP will protect me from SCO. The reality of it all I found out was pure 100% BS. After buying the laptop, HP told me there was no Linux drivers available for it, and no Linux support for it even if I buy Linux from them. I went to look for Linux drivers for my modem and wireless Ethernet devices and found that there are companies that offer them for $15USD and $35USD respectfully that are not the OEM, and that they are not guaranteed to work with all flavors of Linux. So HP gets two thumbs down from me for their p*ss poor Linux support. Other companies are not that much better. We need the big PC makers like Dell, Gateway, HP, etc to 100% support Linux, not just on selected machines and not just for certain hardware. This is the same BS that happened to OS/2, don't let Linux suffer the fate of OS/2.
#6 Get more organizations to consider alternatives to Microsoft products. Take the PHBs out and shoot them if needed to get a better choice of software to use.
No Linux Game Distro is needed when you have a Live Bootable CD like KNOPPIX or Lindows Live. Just bundle the game with the Live Linux CDR and have the user boot off of the CD-ROM/DVD drive.
:)
If they have non-standard hardware, or can't figure out how to boot a CD, then s*cks to be them.
Ok I admit that a Linux Game Distro would be a good idea, but you have to support so many different hardware choices that it would be near impossible to do so. So how do you deal with a user who gets the Linux Game Distro and then has an unsupported WinMODEM or Wifi network adapter that no known Linux driver exists for? Network gaming is then not possible and they will get very upset and move back to Windows. So what are you going to tell them, to buy Linux friendly hardware net time?
Most MCSE's I know cheated on their tests by getting a copy of it off the Internet with all the answers on it before taking it. The rest I have no idea how they passed their MCSE because they apparently do not know anything important about Microsoft technologies. There are few MCSEs that I know of who are worth more than a protozoan's waste. ;)
Disclaimer, I am not a MCSE, nor do I intend to be. In my humble opinion, it is a BS-Certification and while I could easily get one, I choose not to on the priciple of the thing.
I do not want to install their malware, nor should I think it should be legal to trick the user to install it either. If the users knew what kind of program it was, they would not install it. But it has to be hidden behind OS updates, Media Players, shareware, helper programs, toolbars, and other things.
Find another way to make money, I am not buying their defense of Spyware/Adware one bit.